Gotham Episode Review: "What the Little Bird Told Him"

A review of the season 1 television episode that first aired January 19, 2015.

Synopsis: Gordon (Ben McKenzie) manages to get reinstated to the Gotham Police Department. However, it comes with a condition. He and Bullock (Donal Logue) must capture the dangerous Jack Gruber (Christopher Heyerdahl) in 24 hours or both will be demoted to Arkham Asylum duty.Meanwhile, Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) makes her move on Falcone (John Doman). However, her plan runs into unexpected interference from Oswald Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor).

Guest Stars

Gordon is Back

When Gordon got demoted to security guard at Arkham Asylum, I figured it was just a temporary thing. But, in all honesty, I did expect to see it last more than one episode. Still, it was good seeing him back on the streets trying to catch a bad guy.

I think the most intriguing thing about this particular episode was the fact Jack Gruber was caught but not killed. This is a good thing, in my opinion at least, because we’ve seen way too many decent bad guys have one-and-done appearances on the series and the fact Gruber still breathes means we’re likely to see him again. And, given how dangerous he is, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of role he’ll play.

I’m also starting to like this new, edgier Gordon. After getting screwed out of his badge once, he’s definitely not afraid to push things to the limit, especially when it comes to his superiors. It’s going to be fun to see how far that takes him because, at some point, it’s certain to get him in trouble.

Speaking of getting in trouble, Fish Mooney sure seems to be in a ton of it now that Falcone knows about her betrayal, something that resulted in the strangulation of her secret weapon, Liza (Makenzie Leigh), which was a little ironic considering she appeared to be on the fence about helping Fish and could have prevented things from falling apart had she simply told Fish Oswald knew about her.

However, while Fish has been outed; I do suspect she will somehow survive the situation and come out on top. After all, even though I personally wouldn’t mind seeing her go (that character just doesn’t work for me), since she is one of the stars, I would be more likely to believe Falcone will ultimately end up with the short end of the stick.

One of the most interesting things about this episode had to be Barbara (Erin Richards) visiting her parents. That conversation she was having with them looked like one you would expect from casual acquaintances rather than close relatives and gave us a good glimpse of what her childhood must have been like. And, in all honesty, if I grew up in a house like that, I’d probably wind up on drugs too.

I am honestly a bit curious what will happen between her and Gordon now that he seems to have a new love interest in Dr. Thompkins (Morena Baccarin). My first thought was Barbara would eventually become a villain, perhaps maybe even the mysterious Joker (I know she’s the wrong gender, but there’s nothing that says the writers can’t surprise us). But, given the fact she does have the same name as Gordon’s future daughter, I do suspect they will get back together and am now starting to wonder if maybe Thompkins is secretly working for one of the numerous bad guys on the series.

Final Opinion

Gruber was a little easy to catch in the end. But, the episode does a good job of setting up future episodes by putting the various power struggles into motion. As a result, it did leave me looking forward to the next one.